Contents

Introduction

The state legislature is heavily Republican but there are Democratic strongholds in the Salt Lake City area, and in Carbon County (Price) and San Juan County (Moab) in the southeastern part of the state. The mayor of Salt Lake City is [[Ralph Becker, Jr.] (D).

Utah's politics are closely tied with the state's status as the headquarters of and strongest base of membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a/k/a, the "Mormons". This has led to some unusual shifts in party affiliation at various times in the state's history. Currently, Mormons tend Republican in their voting but this was not always the case. During the early 20th century they tended Democratic. This changed starting in the 1950s when Dwight Eisenhower appointed a Mormon leader as his Secretary of Agriculture and continued when Jerry Falwell and other religious right leaders courted Mormons as part of their New Right coalition during the 1980s. However, Mormons despite their socially conservative views cannot be considered a staunch part of the religious right nor even the conservative coalition, and the current alliance is an uneasy one at best. The three counties (Salt Lake, Carbon, and San Juan) with Democratic strongholds are not coincidentally, the only three counties in Utah where the percentage of Mormons is below 50%.